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Restart MSSQLServer

KubeDB supports restarting the MSSQLServer via a MSSQLServerOpsRequest. Restarting is useful if some pods are got stuck in some phase, or they are not working correctly. This tutorial will show you how to use that.

Before You Begin

You need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.
Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here. Make sure install with helm command including --set global.featureGates.MSSQLServer=true to ensure MSSQLServer CRD installation.
To configure TLS/SSL in MSSQLServer, KubeDB uses cert-manager to issue certificates. So first you have to make sure that the cluster has cert-manager installed. To install cert-manager in your cluster following steps here.
To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

  $ kubectl create ns demo
  namespace/demo created

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/mssqlserver folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Deploy MSSQLServer

First, an issuer needs to be created, even if TLS is not enabled for SQL Server. The issuer will be used to configure the TLS-enabled Wal-G proxy server, which is required for the SQL Server backup and restore operations.

Create Issuer/ClusterIssuer

Now, we are going to create an example Issuer that will be used throughout the duration of this tutorial. Alternatively, you can follow this cert-manager tutorial to create your own Issuer. By following the below steps, we are going to create our desired issuer,

Start off by generating our ca-certificates using openssl,

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout ./ca.key -out ./ca.crt -subj "/CN=MSSQLServer/O=kubedb"

Create a secret using the certificate files we have just generated,

$ kubectl create secret tls mssqlserver-ca --cert=ca.crt  --key=ca.key --namespace=demo 
secret/mssqlserver-ca created

Now, we are going to create an Issuer using the mssqlserver-ca secret that contains the ca-certificate we have just created. Below is the YAML of the Issuer CR that we are going to create,

apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Issuer
metadata:
 name: mssqlserver-ca-issuer
 namespace: demo
spec:
 ca:
   secretName: mssqlserver-ca

Let’s create the Issuer CR we have shown above,

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.2.6-rc.0/docs/examples/mssqlserver/ag-cluster/mssqlserver-ca-issuer.yaml
issuer.cert-manager.io/mssqlserver-ca-issuer created

In this section, we are going to deploy a MSSQLServer database using KubeDB.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: MSSQLServer
metadata:
  name: mssqlserver-ag-cluster
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "2022-cu12"
  replicas: 3
  topology:
    mode: AvailabilityGroup
    availabilityGroup:
      databases:
        - agdb1
        - agdb2
  tls:
    issuerRef:
      name: mssqlserver-ca-issuer
      kind: Issuer
      apiGroup: "cert-manager.io"
    clientTLS: false
  podTemplate:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: mssql
          env:
            - name: ACCEPT_EULA
              value: "Y"
            - name: MSSQL_PID
              value: Evaluation # Change it 
  storageType: Durable
  storage:
    storageClassName: "standard"
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

Let’s create the MSSQLServer CR we have shown above,

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.2.6-rc.0/docs/examples/mssqlserver/restart/mssqlserver-ag-cluster.yaml
mssqlserver.kubedb.com/mssqlserver-ag-cluster created

Check the database is provisioned successfully

$ kubectl get ms -n demo mssqlserver-ag-cluster
NAME                     VERSION     STATUS   AGE
mssqlserver-ag-cluster   2022-cu12   Ready    4m

Apply Restart opsRequest

apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MSSQLServerOpsRequest
metadata:
  name: msops-restart
  namespace: demo
spec:
  type: Restart
  databaseRef:
    name: mssqlserver-ag-cluster
  timeout: 3m
  apply: Always

spec.type specifies the Type of the ops Request
spec.databaseRef holds the name of the MSSQLServer database. The db should be available in the same namespace as the opsRequest
The meaning of spec.timeout & spec.apply fields can be found here

Note: The method of restarting the standalone & cluster mode db is exactly same as above. All you need, is to specify the corresponding MSSQLServer name in spec.databaseRef.name section.

Let’s create the MSSQLServerOpsRequest CR we have shown above,

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.2.6-rc.0/docs/examples/mssqlserver/restart/msops-restart.yaml
mssqlserveropsrequest.ops.kubedb.com/msops-restart created

Now the Ops-manager operator will first restart the general secondary pods and lastly will restart the Primary pod of the database.

$ kubectl get msops -n demo msops-restart
NAME            TYPE      STATUS       AGE
msops-restart   Restart   Successful   5m23s

$ kubectl get msops -n demo msops-restart -oyaml
apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: MSSQLServerOpsRequest
metadata:
  annotations:
    kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration: |
      {"apiVersion":"ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1","kind":"MSSQLServerOpsRequest","metadata":{"annotations":{},"name":"msops-restart","namespace":"demo"},"spec":{"apply":"Always","databaseRef":{"name":"mssqlserver-ag-cluster"},"timeout":"3m","type":"Restart"}}
  creationTimestamp: "2024-10-25T06:58:21Z"
  generation: 1
  name: msops-restart
  namespace: demo
  resourceVersion: "771141"
  uid: 9e531521-c369-4ce4-983f-a3dafd90cb8a
spec:
  apply: Always
  databaseRef:
    name: mssqlserver-ag-cluster
  timeout: 3m
  type: Restart
status:
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:58:21Z"
    message: MSSQLServerOpsRequest has started to restart MSSQLServer nodes
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Restart
    status: "True"
    type: Restart
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:58:45Z"
    message: get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: GetPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:58:45Z"
    message: evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: EvictPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:59:20Z"
    message: check pod running; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: CheckPodRunning--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-0
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:59:25Z"
    message: get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: GetPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T06:59:25Z"
    message: evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: EvictPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:00Z"
    message: check pod running; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: CheckPodRunning--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-1
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:05Z"
    message: get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: GetPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:05Z"
    message: evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: EvictPod--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:40Z"
    message: check pod running; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
    observedGeneration: 1
    status: "True"
    type: CheckPodRunning--mssqlserver-ag-cluster-2
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:45Z"
    message: Successfully restarted MSSQLServer nodes
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: RestartNodes
    status: "True"
    type: RestartNodes
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-10-25T07:00:45Z"
    message: Controller has successfully restart the MSSQLServer replicas
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Successful
    status: "True"
    type: Successful
  observedGeneration: 1
  phase: Successful

We can see that, the database is ready after restarting the pods

$ kubectl get ms -n demo mssqlserver-ag-cluster
NAME                     VERSION     STATUS   AGE
mssqlserver-ag-cluster   2022-cu12   Ready    14m

Cleaning up

To clean up the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:

kubectl delete mssqlserveropsrequest -n demo msops-restart
kubectl delete mssqlserver -n demo mssqlserver-ag-cluster
kubectl delete issuer -n demo mssqlserver-ca-issuer
kubectl delete secret -n demo mssqlserver-ca
kubectl delete ns demo

Next Steps

Learn about backup and restore MSSQLServer database using KubeStash.
Want to set up MSSQLServer cluster? Check how to Configure SQL Server Availability Group Cluster
Detail concepts of MSSQLServer Object.
Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.

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